


Six Weeks

by AMRainer



Series: Solace [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Because EMILY PRENTISS LOVES JACK HOTCHNER, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post - Wheels Up, Romance, Season/Series 13, Season/Series 13 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-01-09 23:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12286170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMRainer/pseuds/AMRainer
Summary: That’s how long they need to finally come home to each other. Multi chapter ficlet after the events of ‘Wheels Up’ [13x01].





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> But someone had to write about the six weeks, I MEAN,,, it's almost mandatory.
> 
> Thanks to my greatest supporter and beta, Hannah! You, me and our psychic linguistic skills lol
> 
> Disclaimer: If I owned Criminal Minds, Emily would have said "I love Jack AND Hotch". But she said she won't betray the both of them, so turns out I'm not so enraged anymore :P

_"You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others..."_

_-Robert Louis Stevenson-_

.

I

.

The first week, she lies in bed.

She cries between her long hours of apparent sleep, overlooks her meals until that ulcer comes back to haunt her and she finds herself bent over the basin. It's self-destruction, matter-of-factly. And she is very aware, but there's no absolute way to fix how she is feeling right now.

Amidst those periods of uneven slumber, Emily Prentiss finds her body covered with a film of perspiration – countless times, or at least she doesn't bother with numbers anymore. She's shuddering - trembling, aching - her legs tingle inwardly and she chews her bottom lip until it draws blood, a metallic tinge spilling some sort of sensation back into her.

 _Wheels up, wheels up._  A chanting breath within tells her that it's just a nightmare, that it wasn't even real back then.

Curling up in bed, the raven-haired woman pulls the sheets closer to herself, wrapping them around her slim body as though it can bring warmness to her depths once again. She's not scared, she is just coping, as painful as it is and devastating as it sounds.

It's probably Friday when Mark arrives and she does not have the decency to pick him up at the airport – she forgets, just how she's been ' _forgetting_ ' about him at all recently. Then she sees it in his eyes, sees that she might as well draw the line. Because he is worried sick, because he is sorry for her and somehow she's sure she saw honest pity for the way she tries to escape from his gentleness.

 _Wheels up, wheels up._ She whispers the last night of the week, when there are actual arms around her – and she can't feel safe just yet. There's confusion, a resigned exhale.

She does not need him, she needs  _him_.

.

II

.

The second week, she gives up.

Gives up on the so longed  _them_  that hasn't been there for a great amount of time – probably from the beginning. She's not lying in bed anymore, she's a quarter herself again, though most of the fractures are still to be rebuilt. But she will make it, obviously, she is a Prentiss woman after all.

That's what her mother tells her when they meet for dinner together, one of the few traditions she made sure to carry on ever since she landed on US soil. Nursing a glass of red wine, the older woman offers her a trip – 15 days to wherever she wants, all expenses paid. Emily is grateful for the gesture, but she's more than done covering up her bruises with moves that revel on acquisition.

Eventually, she blurts out that she sent Mark away and to her upmost surprise, there's  _no_  surprise but her own. Not even that characteristic startle that rouses whenever her dearest relative listens to innovations or updates. She's afraid of asking, afraid that she knows the truth herself and that she's running from this ever tempting acknowledgement.

.

II

.

It's still the second week, but she's decided to give it a chance.

That's why she packs in a hurry to London, picks up random clothes, folds them inside the bag and simply takes the first plane without making anyone aware of her rushed departure. She's not going to see Mark or Clyde or anyone else that has been continuously reminding her of everything she wants and everything she does not have.

And the Queen's land is as cold as she remembers, it's home though she adores to forget about it. There's still a pub down the street, a café nearby in which she can enrage the pain whenever something hits the internal wound. Above such inns, there are a multitude of spacious parks, with the leaves slowly changing from vibrant greens to muted reds with the passing of time, contrasting against the gloomy London skies.

Feminine hands are safely tucked inside her charcoal coat's pockets, a ponytail and neatly trimmed bangs remarking her presence whilst she takes steps to nowhere in particular.

 _I've watched Jack grow up_. A loud horn jolts her back to the exterior, her unyielding posture giving nothing away as she apologizes with a shake of her head and a rush in her walk.

The former Interpol chief regrets every word, regrets every damn give-away she allowed to slip out when that son of a bitch hadn't really done any physical harm to her. Worrying her bottom lip, she wanders away on the pavement, half conscious of the tears burning her high cheek bones, of the wind enveloping her in the terrible sensation of solitude.

Cream, white, blue and rose fill the corner of her eyes, perfectly polished glass almost begging her to watch the contents behind it. It's an instinct, it's a slight tilt of her head towards the object. There it is.

 _I've watched Jack grow up._  If only anyone heard that, if only anyone ever noticed that she's been the one to apparently detach from those little dimples more publicly than others. If only they knew the truth, if only they knew the past in which  _they_ 'd be the things she would more than eventually come back home to until the monster of her nightmares dragged her into the abyss.

Her dark orbs bore into the little thing, it's the tiniest detail, one she could never forget even if so she wanted to. It's a set of fluorescent stars that they made sure to paste on his ceiling. It's Haley and Hotch and Jessica and her and everyone that ever mattered to him.

She can't move for longer than she wants to, she can't even find any rationality or strength. She's stuck at a crossroads, one in which she is sure of what she wants and, moreover, certain about what she'll cause with it.

 _I've watched Jack grow up, I will not betray him or his father._  And the delight in Peter's somber features reminded her of that flicker painting Ian's blue pair when he mentioned how  _they_  were alone while she was there with him, years ago now.

It's the last thing she is capable of mustering before her presence is just a ghost, before she's vanished from the past and present collapsing into a future she's not yet ready for. It's a hollow promise she whispers to herself, desperate and remorseful and hopefully conscious because there's half bottle of liquor sitting on her nightstand.

 _I_ will _watch Jack grow up._


	2. Chapter 2

_"_ _I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be...yours."_

_-Jane Austen-_

.

III

.

The third week, she's back.

Lonely, broken, partially sober for most of it. She dials his number several times, almost crashes her phone into the wall on more occasions than she cares to admit. It's all fucked up, she's fucked up, and her legs are still hurting in her cracked rest. She wonders if taking the pills would help, stands in front of the bathroom's wide mirror with an unhuman black shadowing the skin beneath her worn out eyes.

The brunette woman draws the line during one of those endless nights. She can't keep going on like this, she needs to sleep, needs more than mere intermittent naps brewed along nightmares that have been taking the best of her.

 _Wheels up, wheels up._ A tiny faltering voice repeats again and again, sometimes wearing grey suits, sometimes full black or deep blue. His even tone never missed a beat, her memories of it though, seem suddenly foggier than she wants them to be.

Home now is torture. Emily Prentiss comes to this conclusion four days into the week – while she's shuddering with eager need for arms around her.  _His_  arms. Albeit she closes her eyes, albeit she's trying her best, compartmentalizing as well as she can, there is something missing.

 _Wheels up, wheels up._  And there she is, internally cursing him for performing his role as her support for when times get rough, for  _worse_  - always worse - even though there were rare  _betters_.

.

{III}

.

It's still the third week when accidents happen.

She's not supposed to be in just yet - it's too soon - and notwithstanding mandatory easily means optional in her humble point of view, Cruz is not even fazed to find her visiting late at night whilst he's heading to the elevators. Something shifts, perhaps that quick anxious glance he casts at the bullpen.

There's no time for explanation, not enough, for a soft ding prompts him to move into the metal box. Her confused frown is palpable, her natural suspicious tingle sheathes everywhere within the younger Chief.

Long strides until where she wants to be – the only place that is his and hers and theirs recently. But the raven-haired woman pauses, halts in order to analyze, to believe and not to weakly crumble right then and there – she's Emily Prentiss, she's not weak, she's  _never_  weak.

Eyes wide open, lips slightly parted in a contained gasp, a lump in her throat searing every possibility to speak. It's like she's just seen a ghost – and she has. Her hands ball as they fall loosely, though now stiff, beside her heady curves. It's like winter and summer and the black and white imprint of a fucking movie scene.

 _He_  is there. Broad shoulders and squared back facing her – his – office's window. It could be anyone, it should be anyone. Yet, it's him with his neatly pressed suit jacket, the collar sitting in the same way she remembers – she almost inhales his cologne the moment such memories plunder her attention – and then there's his posture.

She is somewhere else. Safe and protected and pretending to be blind to the way he probably peruses her plate only to see, right there upon  _his_  desk, a vivid image of everything he was coerced to leave behind.

 _Wheels up, wheels up._  That's the only thing she can recollect while her hands shakily work on the steering wheel in order to drive her anywhere but where he is.

She's not ready yet, she will never be.

.

{III}

.

Finally, the end of the third week arrives, but that just means she's done with it.

Fingernails clatter the table between her and her mentor – the good old Italian in his good though not old mansion. He sighs, taps his thumb patiently upon the surface, rummaging with everything she just told him. Enough, that's all he can muster when her worn out form appears by his front door.

It's from the way she moves to the way her heeled boots repeatedly hit the floor, and then there's that shift starting on her shoulders and translating into a whole change in her body language. There's a glass of scotch sitting in front of her. Cold and begging her to just loosen up a bit, to open up a bit. She fights it, her hand securely around the amber and wickedly ready to down.

"Wheels up?"

Takes her so much longer than usual to realize the question mark, her eyes raptured, ashamed also. A slight move forward, that so expected tension around the glass and there she is, alcohol meeting her mouth and unabashedly exposing her bare.

No, it's not a problem, he knows better. It's the loss, the hurt that lingers, twists and turns. Makes this mess of her, matter-of-factly. If only it was the emotional field, then it would be bearable – she compartmentalizes better than most people, that's what she always tells everyone at least.

But it's not. It's the physical pain to her legs that still wobble eventually, that tingle with nonexistent broken. It's the lack of hazel eyes to match her dark doe ones. Foreign arms wrapped around her, not  _his_.

The Unit Chief offers him a nod. That's more than she would usually do – less than she should though, so much less. Alcohol burns her throat, forbids her from proceeding with her never to be uttered speech. She bites it back, swallows along with the lump in her throat.

"He misses you too"

That's when she stops. Shakes and trembles and quivers inwardly until there's nothing much to do but to still her feet on the solid ground in an abrupt thud. It's a beat before she sees  _him_ , it's a beat before she even recognizes that voice as the one she talked on that phone shortly after Scratch's death - when she was finally able to set him free.

He's exactly how she remembers, all suit and tie and that glass of scotch attesting that he came here straight from her – their – office. Because she had to pass by home, had to try to sleep first albeit that was some useless shit at this point. Perhaps she should have come earlier, perhaps she shouldn't have come at all.

Her dark orbs are bored into his figure, following the line of his clad collarbones only to draw a faint picture of her fingers clawing his warm skin. Then it's the remembrance of skimming the back of his neck that steals her attention, it's the scribble she used to proudly imprint on his back from nights she does not even remember anymore.

In the end, it's the flicker she sees when their sights collide – the unyielding  _love_  that he bestows on her despite all moon dust he vaguely uses to bury it.

" _Hotch?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexy times or plot twist next chapter? Do tell me your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't stop you from reading, ofc, but just know there's plot twist AND sexy times bc I couldn't decide myself. Hope you enjoy it and I love Hannah ;)

_"There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights."_

_\- Bram Stoker_

.

{III}

.

"What are you doing here?"

"I saw you"

"You did?"

"I did."

"And what the fuck were doing in my –  _our_  - office? Or at the BAU even? What were you thinking? You shouldn't have…"

"I was thinking of you."

"Shut up"

"Emily, you are drunk"

"I did not even have a sip. I am not drunk, the glass was full"

"It was empty."

"Are you calling me insane?"

"No."

"Like hell! Can you at least answer my first question?"

"I am doing the same as you are"

"What?"

"I am here because I miss you, I made that clear when we talked on the phone"

"No, you did not, you said you couldn't come back because you were-  _are_  happy giving Jack a regular childhood for once"

"Not quite everything I said"

"So fine fuck, you said Jack misses me. Great! What about you?"

"And you said you love Jack, what about me?"

"How can you possibly know that?"

"You know the answer"

"Who- What? No. No, no. No,  _fuck_  no."

It's still the third week, and accidents indeed happened – just not the ones she's been anticipating.

.

III

.

Now it's the third week, an infernal loop of finite time.

Her head is aching, there's probably a bandage there and it takes her some minutes to realize what is going on. The lights are strong and she wonders if she's dead – but then that cold, dark remembrance haunts her, shuts down her every theory. She blinks once, twice, three times before her weary doe eyes flutter open.

 _Wheels up, wheels up._  It's a silent plea to herself when her lids unhood those deep irises.

Emily shifts, moves slightly just in order to check on the integrity of her body – her legs, her arms, but especially her legs. That's when she finds him. Yes,  _him_ , his hand warming up hers like a bolt of hope that has been lacking for so damn long. His eyes are still hazel, shimmering and dark and smolder as though he's the perfect blend of her downfall and her salvation.

Masculine fingers entwine with hers, squeezing in a quiet plea for her to wake up. It's no good to sleep after a concussion; he knows the statistics – thanks to Reid – of not emerging from the slumber. But they sedated her, forced her into this for her body had weakened in ways he never quite watched afore.

She inquires him, questions how she ended up in that hospital bed with an access ripping her veins to allow the influx of so much needed medicine. Parts of her want to cry, to unwire herself from that hell and run out with the faded remembrance of how she begged for morphine not a month ago.

But he's there, he's real now, and his lips press to her forehead in a way that elicits a soft yelp from her dry throat. It burns her skin, boils her heart with that unwavering flame of hope that had been lacking. Her tears stream down her high cheekbones out of their own volition, the grip she instinctively keeps onto his shirt tightening whilst the brunette male whispers to her the only thing capable to soothe the Unit Chief.

"Wheels up, Emily".

.

IV

.

The fourth week, there's still a bandage there.

Her bangs manage to hide it properly, the younger Prentiss notices shortly after, a random morning in which she combs her damp dark strands, pulls them into a ponytail. Brown eyes drown in the reflection of hazel eyes, dazed along with two mugs of flaming caffeine.

She shouldn't be in Vermont – despite the fact that she wants to, from somewhere within. Hotch has another life now, Jack too, and it's bordering selfish the way she easily obliges when he basically coaxes her into coming with him. There's no turning back now, not anymore, and perhaps there never had one in the first place.

Slender fingers wrap around the cup's handle, bringing the content to her mouth, ignoring the strong stab to her tongue that is quickly bathed with the hot liquid. Emily does not even flinch, licking her bottom lip under his firm gaze. Vulnerable, self-conscious, and it sounds so much like that late night in which she left him behind, speechless in his polished shoes – when she made her way into his life and into the team.

His sandy-haired boy is at school, that void left in his rather small flat almost unbearable as he ravishes her without even closing the gap between them. The vicious grip he holds on the cup is unsettling, the desperate film of worry clouding his sight – and hers in extent.

It takes a beat to realize that his mouth is on hers, soft and tender and slightly parted against that supple piece of her. One of his hands covers her slim waist, draws her closer therefore they can play that game once more – therefore they can rely on the warmness emanating from their skins.

The older man breaks the kiss, looks into her eyes to find that so dreaded darkness flaring everywhere. She missed him, he missed her. And when he cups her cheek, grabs hold of her cup to make quick work of leaving it upon the wooden dresser right behind her. Along with his, beside his, just like he's been craving them to be for God knows how long.

Panting and gasping and eventually stumbling, Hotch manages to take her to his bed, to lay her down and cover her with his body, to slip his thigh between her legs because he goddamn knows she needs the friction. She needs it to be real. And that's what he gives her – that's all he can give her.

 _Himself_. Wholly, completely, fully.

Emily lies there, undressed and exposed to his very eyes as soon as he manages to. There's a sense of trust and reliability that she can't quite pinpoint, for the surge to shield herself from him is inexistent in the simple concept of it.

He's seen all of her. For better or for worse. For better  _and_ for worse. He's seen her skin when only the black ink stained it; he's seen the brands and scars also. He's seen the bruises from accidents, from Cyrus' bare fists.

And she's seen him too. It's evident by the instant the dark haired man slips out of his shirt, uncovers his tall frame under her heated gaze. The scars all sit the same. Nine lines with one standing right between them from that damn surgery to repair the mess caused by the others. Scar tissue, war gifts, brands from the battles they've battled every single day in the past – and the ones they will still have for the future.

Masculine lips press to her right calf, the grip he has on her ankle is steady as his hazel orbs never leave her flushed features. He trails open-mouthed kisses up to her lips, averts the only place she wants him to bring into his hot mouth. Their tongues tangle, explore every crevasse, every recess. Tentative, slowly and wet and it feels as much as the first time.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, Emily makes the first move of hers ever since they met in middle. A moan leaves her throat, vibrates into his heated cave and he just dwells the response with a baritone groan of his. He's cocked against her, heavy and ready and drenched with her arousal that coats him with every lazy swivel from her hips.

Then he's inside of her, pushing slowly as he disappears between her legs with one long thrust. He hits bottom, sheathes within only to look down at her face and find her eyes lost on him. She's beautiful, so much more beautiful than any woman he's ever met. And he loves her, has loved her for so long that it's almost painful now.

Short nails skim the hem of hairs on the nape of his neck, lean legs locking around him as her tight channel clamps down with what the brunette female classifies as a  _fucking_  need for him. It's stupid, that slight buck from her hips causing her clit to brush against his pubic bone and her back to arch. But he's so tightly pressed, so closely bound to her.

She needs more, asks for more with her body because words are quite impossible to escape her right now. Despite the conditions, despite the feelings he's sunken down for her and her for him, he makes  _love_  to her. It's the only way he knows how to take her, the only way he's ever been capable to let go of all his personal – and professional, mainly professional – rules and throw caution through the window.

Pounding into her, the father of one lowers his head to her neck, nuzzles her jaw until he finds her earlobe. And murmurs – to her, and her only – how much he  _fucking_  loves her, how much he missed her, how many times he was in bed alone and his only thought was when he'd be able to pull her into his arms and claim her as his.

Because he's doing it as he speaks, easing his length and girth into her cunt as he drives them closer to the edge with every thrust he  _oh so_  skillfully performs. It does not take long, all the bottled up emotions, pent up musings, exploding as a hundred different colors behind their lids as she comes apart around him, clenching then fluttering in a way that drags him deeper into her and straight to that white wave of his high, while he paints her depths with his seed.

He does not slip out of her, doesn't even move – he can't; she can't either. His breath is ragged in the crook of her neck, hers matching his while she keeps her face the closer available to his.

Then he tells her.

Explains fracture by fracture of how she fell in her bathroom – passed out -, hit her forehead on the counter and surfaced from her pain to fish her phone upon the nightstand, just right outside.  _Aaron Hotchner_. Alphabetical order suddenly saving her because, matter-of-factly, he would be the only one to gather what her empty line meant.

 _Wheels up, wheels up_. That's how he knew.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter of this piece, and a cliffhangery end because I'm a sucker for finishing but not finishing lol  
> hope you enjoy it! please leave comments, and thanks to hannah for the beta.

_ “Wear me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, passion cruel as the grave.” _

__ -William Shakespeare - _ _

 

.

V

.

The fifth week, they are undressed for most of it.

He’s within her for as many times as he can endure and, despite his age, it’s still much more than both had gotten during a week since the early 90’s. She does not complain, only complies and makes sure to excuse herself of wearing undergarments of any sort. It’s been a lifetime since they could have a lazy weekend – put aside a week, that never happened whatsoever.

There’s this one time in which she stands in front of him, leans on the doorframe with a coy smile, flushed cheeks and a different sort of glint in her dark eyes. The brunette watches him from across the room, two wine glasses stained with the alcoholic content.

It’s late night, Jack is asleep in  _ their _ – yes, their, because she’s been in that bed for longer than she’s been in hers anyway – bed, waiting for the raven-haired pair to warm-up his sides. In private, the recently-turned-teen is just another boy whose life has suffered too much damage to bother with the proper “thirteen-years-old demeanor”. And he hasn’t had Emily around for an awful long time.

That’s when he realizes what he’s doing, reading through the manila folder she brought along with the only purpose of finishing the reports she has to – she’s the Chief, after all. His orbs meet hers almost apologetically while he closes the untouched case and leans back against his seat. He’s almost Hotch,  _ almost _ . She can see it in his shoulders, the building frown, the tired lines that age gave him and only added to his natural charm.

There’s a question when she cocks an eyebrow towards the files, silent but ever so needed that it’s not even a surprise when she’s sauntering towards him, eyes hooded and skin warm. She’s asking him to come back – to her life, to  _ their  _ team, to his life that is pretty much the same one she has now.

But she’s never been him, regardless of how much she tries, and that almost indulgent way in which she runs her hand down his shirt clad chest is enough for him to understand. That night, that one single night, he  _ fucks _ her against his desk – bold and tight and partially dressed.

And when they are close, so dangerously close that she’s begging and he’s giving her exactly what she wants (that possessive bruise on her hip, that slight pressure of him tugging on her hair), Emily Prentiss has a brief of moment of plainness.

She finds right there, in the middle of her high, that he can be Hotch in bed, can still sit with his suit and tie and that entire formal image and ever so stoic expression. But she sees it in his eyes when he kisses her goodnight, that he’d rather be Aaron now.

 It’s the beginning of the end.

.

VI

.

The sixth week, they are lazy.

 She’s tucked between Jack and him, his masculine arm wrapped around them in a safeguarded embrace that feels almost too familiar, almost her routine now. His bare chest presses warm and flush to her back, his every breath calm yet vibrating through her. It’s soothing, it’s certainly one of the things she will miss when their time being is over.

And so it hits her that they have a week. Seven mornings, seven nights, seven chances to be what it was before – what it still can be regardless of the fact that now she’s not selfish enough to require it. Her mind reels, spins around and makes a fool of itself with the  _ oh so _ many ideas she has in deck for the following hours.

Park, beach, shopping, salsa dancing – if she’s lucky enough to drag him along once more, that is -, dinner, movies.

Although it fails – there’s rain and more rain, then Jack has a school trip to a random memorial that turns out with him catching a terrible cold –, she finds a way. And at some points, the raven-hair woman even thinks that it’s the best outcome to a whole disaster.

A warm hand squeezes her shoulder by Saturday night, jolts her awake to a sore neck and a blanket wrapped around her and his son. Her lids batter, once, twice, three times, weary from the hours of irrevocable binge watching. They meet his frame turning off the TV, the muscles of his broad shoulders contracting under his shirt and eliciting a stab of arousal that runs mildly, almost shy, down her lean frame.

The Unit Chief follows him, watching closely his every step until he’s in the home office, arms folded across his chest and a look that asks for more, knows what is about to come and hates that he can’t fight it. There’s a pause, a tense silence, his hazel orbs trained on feminine features and her doe eyes running away from the pain in their reflection.

“I’m going back to DC” his voice is nonchalant, hopeful, needy and laced with a bare hint of hope that she hasn’t heard in so fucking long. “There was an apartment for sale and-”

It’s an unfinished sentence, an unfinished chapter, her plump lips meeting his with such gentleness that his body responds almost immediately. Calloused fingers entwine with her soft dark hair, pull her even closer until they are melding. He’s not inside of her, yet he is. When she finally drowns into hazel, bottomless eyes, she matches joy in intensity and color.

“There’s room for a cat” and she laughs, hands running down from the side of his corded neck to the stiffness of his collarbones. There’re dimples on his cheeks, an unabashed tint of  _ finally _ painting his every relaxed feature, almost insanely oblivious to what is about to come.

It’s the end of the week, but it’s the beginning of something else.

.

.

.

.

.

Time of Which we Have no Knowledge

.

Black boots clatter their way down the hall, go bag slung over one shoulder and purse over the other, fidgeting with the car key as it makes an unbelievably satisfying noise to her ever so unready ears. This isn’t the way she supposed things would go on, this definitely isn’t the way she wants things to go on. She pushes through the front door, throws her belongings on the kitchen counter once she’s decided for a sip before the duty.

A sip turns into five and she still hasn’t mustered the courage. He probably realized that she’s home at this point – he’s hypervigilant, a small gift from Foyet, witsec and his barely there eardrum. The last drop of alcohol washes her mouth, warns her that it’s more than she should have for a Tuesday night.

Regardless of the deep breath she takes, regardless of the grip she keeps on the edge of the counter before she decides to move, she can’t bear the thought of doing this again. Her fingertips feel the paper on the maroon envelope, toy with the seal before she pulls herself back on track and up to their room.

 White suit jacket leaves her torso as soon as she crosses the door, then he’s inquiring, that calculated frown deeper than usual and slightly confused. Nimble fingers unbutton her shirt, discard another layer as she now stands in front of the bed where he’s peacefully sitting, in nothing but lace and work pants proudly belted to her hips.

Paper hits the blanket, his large hand reaching as the black curtain of hair shakes in pure guilt for what she’s almost pleading at this point. It’s her only hope to keep it all up, her only hope to keep the team together and her clear state of mind. She can’t bear the thought of not protecting the people that have her life in their hands every bloody time they are out in the field.

Brows furrowed, that unpleased and pensive line drawing his lips downwards almost as the man she wants to bring back out of him. His eyes are harsh when they land on her svelte, semi naked figure.

“They want you back…” she utters, a tinge of despair cladding her ever so fathomless expression when required “ _ I _ want you back”

“You have me already” the folder is tossed aside, partially scattered on the mattress. There’s a frustrated sigh before she crawls up to him, straddles his hips and it’s unfair of her but she’s begging and he’s willing. He even adores it on some levels if he has to be honest with himself.

Her lips meet his, long and slow and coaxing, because it’s her time to give and his time to receive. Feminine digits skim his sides, rest on his breastbone as one of her cheeks nestle on his shoulder. The former Chief’s hand covers the current’s one. It’s bigger, warmer, rougher. It’s a perfect contrast that defines them for, in the end, both are just as calloused by their jobs and lives and everything they’ve been through.

“Wheels up, Hotch” a whisper, barely there, albeit the struggle to let it out. Silence lingers and she shuts her lids, gauging his reaction that she can sense on the altered race of his heart.

“Wheels up, Emily”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for following and reading and leaving me some love  
> see you next time ;)


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